Heartbeat Music Collective

Venus Rising 3: Fire and Dance

@ Tago Mago 4/04/14

Part One: An Overview.

"Venus Rising" is now synonymous in my mind with an evening of beautiful performances, vibrant energy, colour, whimsy and wit. The atmosphere was relaxed but vibrant and the room full of beautiful souls that drew me from my increasingly reclusive lifestyle.

The "Venus Rising" events are organized by Mikki Michelle, a budding event organizer and musician in her own right. Mikki has a knack for combining different genres of arts into one cohesive event. The walls were lined with art-work and the performances included a dancer, two slam poets, and four musicians. Despite my trepidation about a strictly female only performance, there was an immense amount of variety. My biggest fear was that every act would pull out a folk ukelele and do nothing interesting with it. The female-uke-player has become a sort of negative Melbourne trend. Yes, they were present, but far from the 'fol-de-fol, my lover lies in the meadows' way. Overall, it was an amazing night that I will remember with great pleasure.

I will include layman's reviews here for Yoyoe Love, Hippie Terra, and Liliana Flower. My inexperience with their mediums would not do them justice for a full review, so here are the 'CliffsNotes' and the musicians will be back for Part Two: Rising My Venus.

Liliana Flower: The lady in red belly-dancer. A very beautiful and graceful performance. My only wish for it would have been better lighting, but in the venue it just wasn't possible as it required jimmying the lights with the end of a broom.

Hippie Terra: A slam poet. I was taken back to my initial experience of Melbourne, embroiled in the world of polically motivated slam poety. The dance floor became a storytime for children affair as the crowd settled at her feet. Her poetry is very promising and I hope that she perserveres with all of the experience that performing slam can bring. Hippie Terra finished with a seated Ben Harper cover song. I would've preferred an extra poem. The acoustic nylon string guitar was mic'ed, which always fills me with apprehension, and the other downside was that it meant a few minutes of fluffing around with chairs and mic levels, breaking the flow. Given that it was a Ben Harper cover, maybe after the 'Fuck you, Tony Abbott' poem, it could have been “Please Bleed”.

Yoyoe Love: Another young slam poet. Initially, a common theme in her poetry appeared to be modes of transportation. Her poems are named after the medium of how they were getting to somewhere whilst the subject matter took place. Then she pulled out “Me and My Lover”, a very visceral, seething, boiling, passionate poem that drenched the crowd with a young love and lust reawakening.